Nov 7, 2026, 4:18 PM@jonah This is one of those hard truths that people don’t really like to accept or talk about. And I think this coupled with the entrenched profit systems in the medical industry are the biggest hurdles against socializing healthcare
Nov 7, 2026, 4:23 PM@ibwatson it’s just a kind of weird/frustrating argument I have with people in other countries that the fact is that in the current system I *personally* would be significantly worse off moving to their country, and the same is also true of *most* Americans.
It’s a bad system where people who are worse off basically shoulder this burden, but most people are only going to think about themselves, and for those people there doesn’t appear to be a big reason to change the system even in cases where they’d technically benefit. Because life is already pretty great, until the sticker shock of gas or something comes along lol
And I do feel like a lot of people in other countries don’t seem to want to accept that actually a lot of Americans kinda have it really really good
Nov 7, 2026, 4:44 PM@douginamug @ibwatson basically, yes.
And additionally, that the higher wages and lower taxes in America (more than) make up for the cost of insurance.
I get the impression that a lot of Europeans believe they just have healthcare better than Americans, but for most Americans this doesn't seem to be true financially.
A higher percentage of Europeans likely receive quality healthcare than a higher percentage of Americans, but most Europeans don't have it better than most Americans.
Those are two very different things, and the latter fact is why most Americans don't appear to really care about this problem.
Nov 7, 2026, 5:47 PM@jonah @douginamug @ibwatson
American doctors seem to test more thoroughly and are much more inquisitive than European doctors who always seen feel they have to minimize the financial cost as well as take care of the patient. And here in the Netherlands, many specialist aren't really interested in patient outcomed, if a few standard tests do not show anything, it is back home and take care of yourself. No critical thinking or an out of the box approach and a slight disdain for patients.
So how to get the American quality in a European system?